DAVID RAGAN press conference
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 Discount Tire Ford Fusion (finished 3rd, qualified 9th) – “Well, that’s about the best we’ve been on a mile-and-a-half track in a while. We always seem to be pretty good on Friday and then when they drop the green flag we’re usually just pretty average. But, we made a good run and made good pit stops. You know, we were a fifth- or sixth-place car and got track position at the end and finished third.”
DENNY HAMLIN HAS HAD HIS CUP CREW CHIEF WORKING THE NATIONWIDE SIDE. DO YOU EVER WANT YOUR CUP CREW CHIEF ON SATURDAYS OR DO YOU FEEL LIKE HE’S GOT ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT? “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind having my Cup crew chief around. He’d probably make my [Nationwide] crew chief so nervous that it would be a catastrophe in the pits. But, no, it would be good to have my Cup crew chief around a little bit to just maybe pick up on one or two things. And even if he’s not here he looks over the notes and he knows what we did all day today. He’s back at the hotel watching on TV, but he’ll know what we did anyway.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 Scotts Winterguard Ford Fusion (finished 4th, qualified 4th) – “A good finish but not what we needed with Clint [Bowyer] finishing second. We fought back all day. The guys did a really good job. A couple of little things happened. The valence got broken, I guess, at the beginning – I haven’t seen a picture of it or anything. We fixed that, and then we this vibration that I thought the engine was blowing up. It ran all day. And then the tachometer needle broke, so coming off for the last pit stop, I was trying to remember back to the days when I drove my van with no speedometer, you know, I was trying to calibrate my internal speedometer. I just had a slow pit road because of that. The guys did a good job.”
HOW WAS THE CAR ON THE LONG RUNS? “We were a lot better on the longer runs. I guess we’ll just go on and hope we can catch Clint somewhere else. He did a good job.”
ARE YOU ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT WHERE HE IS ON THE TRACK? “Oh, yeah. I guarantee you that Clint and I know where each other are as much as anybody on the race track. That’s just part of it. You don’t want to get hung out on a strategy thing, so we keep track of one another.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Arby’s Ford Fusion (finished 5th, qualified 6th) – “Well, it’s alright. It’s about what I thought it would be. We qualified, I thought, better than our car was and we raced about like we were yesterday. We just could never quite get it right all weekend. We just had one problem, that we kind of worked on, in the middle of the corner, we just could never get the left-front down and turn it good enough. So, we just fought that all day. It got tight on the long runs and we tried kind of a Hail Mary adjustment there and it made it worse, it made it tighter, and I just couldn’t hang on.”
THE NATIONWIDE CARS AND CUP CARS ARE DIFFERENT, BUT DID THE TRACK TELL YOU ANYTHING TODAY THAT YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO USE TOMORROW? “You know, the track did what I thought it would do, but it was nice to run today and try some different lines and move around and try to see what the track and kind of try to see what the track would be like for tomorrow. It never hurts to get some extra time.”
KELLY BIRES – No. 47 JTG Racing Ford Fusion (finished 10th, started 10th) – “It just shows how hard everyone is working on this 47 team week-in and week-out. We had a top-three car last week before an unfortunate incident, and then to come back here and build another top-10 car, that’s fantastic. We weren’t as good as we needed to be, we were a little bit too loose at the start of a run, and a little bit too light at the end so we had quite of a bit of balance shift, but we never quit working, and by the end of the day, we sat 10th. I think we were one adjustment away from being, probably seventh, or so, but all in all, you’ve got to be happy with that day.”
PLUS, YOU WERE MOVING FORWARD AT THE END… “That’s where you want to be – good at the end of the run. That’s just good communication, good teamwork, you know. We know what we’ve got here for a car, and we know how to make it better, and we did that every time today. You know, if it had been a 400-mile race, we would’ve finished a little bit better, but it’s just a great day. I thank everyone who works hard for these cars.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 59 Kingsford Tailgate at Home Ford Fusion (finished 11th, qualified 16th) – “We were a bit tight. We were tight all day and we just couldn’t quite clear it up. But, it was a great day. This is a new car for us, and I’m pretty pleased with it. The thing’s got a lot of potential for us. I feel like we raced well. It’s been a strong weekend.”
DID THE TRACK TELL YOU ANYTHING THAT YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO USE TOMORROW DURING THE CUP RACE? “Not really, but the laps helped, that’s all. Just laps on the race track do help, knowing what to expect when fuel burns off and the tires wear out. But, the COTs handle so differently.”